The son
by Swiper. No swiping
Summary: This is the happiest day of my life.


_What the fuck?  
_

* * *

Blood is all over the car. All over the car where she lays naked, taking quick shallow breaths. Staring at nothing in the distance, eyes glassy and unfocused. Legs spread wide apart, one foot pressed against the window, the other leg supported on the trunk. Her dilated vagina pumps blood onto the hot leather as I'm speeding along the desert highway, trying to get us there on time.

The blood all over the steering wheel is still wet because I keep smearing it around. It's all hers, from where I carried her to the car from our apartment.

Radio's on playing classic rock to calm her. A/C's on to cool her down. Even though she's insensate. I did these things because we practiced them. Much like anybody else in childbirth, all she can focus on is the distant feeling of pain.

And I say: Hang on Amy, we're almost there. We're going there.

Hn hn hn hn hn, she says.

We'll be there soon.

Hn hn hn hn hn, she says.

We pass a large semi and then a few cars on the left and right. As long as she is still breathing then we're okay. That's all I care about. I just need to get her there on time.

The sun has already started descending in the sky but it's a beautiful clear day out with only a few clouds. Sunshine beats down into the car, heating the leather up. Trying to cook us alive.

She limply tosses a hand in my direction as though she is trying to reach for me. As though she is trying to tell me something.

But all she says is: Hn hn hn hn hn.

I smile at her.

It's going to be okay, Amy. I promise.

Car behind me blasts its horn because I'm swerving all over the road too much.

It's going to be okay, I say again, as I quickly pull the car off the road and into the desert. Crashing through the fence, ripping posts out of the ground. The car reacts to the change in friction, jumps, then moves along again as though nothing changed.

There are more car horns. Multiple ones this time. I can only imagine what they're saying. It doesn't matter.

This is the happiest day of my life.

We're almost there now. Hang on.

Amy's tossed around, splattering a little more blood on the car interior. She cries a little, attempting to communicate in screams and twitches. Eyes showing nothing. At this point she is a being of pure reaction, only responding to external stimuli as best as she can and not making any assumptions or actions.

The song on the radio breaks up into static.

You know I love you, don't you?

Hn hn hn hn hn.

You have to trust me and we'll see this through. You, me, and the baby.

Hn hn hn hn hn.

Just relax. Everything's going to be okay.

The radio is now completely static so I shut it off.

It doesn't matter anymore because we're only ten minutes from the park, the park where I was going to take her, the park where the baby's going to be born.

There used to be a ghost town up in the hills here by the name of Callisto. When Callisto was in its prime there were thousands of settlers there. One day they all started getting sick and dying. Pretty soon they were all dead. None of them survived. None of them even fled. Nobody really knows what happened. A lot of folks say it was the desert. The desert can make people do strange things.

We pull up to the edge of the cliff where there's a natural rock table, looking out over the sprawling cabins and joshua trees below. This is perfect.

Stop the car. Her foot wanders over to the passenger side door. She limply kicks the glass a few times, moaning while she does it. Exit through the driver's side, open the back door.

We're here, I say.

Hn hn hn hn hn, she says.

The whole of her abdomen is sticky with her blood. Lift her out of the car and into my arms. Her pregnant belly makes her heavy. Almost seems heavier than before. Maybe

I'm weak from the driving, or maybe she is heavier. Something seems odd, seems magical about all this.

As I lay her down on the table.

Stand back and wait.

This is the happiest day of my life.

Her screams and growls get louder, more frenzied, higher-pitched. Her legs kicking at nothing, blood gushing out from between them.

NA HN NA HN NA HN.

There's a pause. The world stops. The few clouds that exist aren't moving. The wind isn't even blowing. The sun is hanging still in the sky.

Finally she kicks out her legs, locks her knees, and a gigantic amount of blood shoots out from her vagina and onto the sand. Slurping noises as the baby moves from out of her birth canal and through her labia.

Yes! Oh, Amy!

Amy's screaming, crying. Looking at me as though this is my fault. And I suppose it is.

But we will be so happy, the three of us.

It comes through, slick. Covered in her juices. The umbilical cord still attached. The baby falls onto the dirt.

Her legs fall onto the table, limp and useless. She breathes in again, then pauses, holds her breath there.

I move to pick up our son. Our baby son.

The baby lies still, not screaming or crying.

Pick it up.

It falls apart in my hands.

It doesn't have much skin covering it. The organs are hanging out of its chest and abdomen. All it has is its face, with one gigantic eye and one bizarre nose-like appendage sticking out of its forehead. A lipless cavity for its mouth.

Heat is welling up in my throat, bubbling there.

A-Amy, I manage, finally. Our son is–

But Amy isn't breathing either. She is just lying there on the table, still. Paler than ever. Color draining out of her face. Her naked breasts fall, nipples pointed toward her face, and rest there.

Amy?

She doesn't respond.

Amy, I hit her face gently. Amy, wake up.

She doesn't move. She doesn't breathe. She just stares at me, accusingly.

I know this.

I know.

Grab the umbilical cord and tug the placenta out of her. Dead weight. Carefully I wrap the baby in the umbilical cord and the placenta, then head for the car. Find the swaddling blankets I brought. Rest his little body in them and swaddle him tightly.

He is a beautiful monster. He is my beautiful monster.

And this was supposed to be the happiest day of my life but it turns out to be the saddest.

Sometimes when you set yourself up for greatness, you really get the most bitter kind of disappointment.

But when you set yourself up for disappointment, you usually can't enjoy things when they turn out better than you thought.

And I don't know which is worse.

I thought that by the time I became a father I would have all the answers to life's questions, but I don't.

The baby is heavy in my hands, even. Almost a heavier burden than Amy was. It is important for the baby to receive warmth. I think I read that somewhere. Babies must receive body heat. And they must hear their parents' voices within the first twenty-four hours, or else they run the risk of developing strange mental conditions later in life. I think that's what I read.

I don't know. There were so many goddamn baby books.

Walk down the backside of the cliff, more like a hill. Weaving in and out of the small bushes in the desert. Joshua trees and reddened rocks. As far from civilization as possible. I can't even hear the rushing of the cars on the highway from here.

Feet hitting the hard rock underneath the sand. Holding my boy tightly to my chest.

What were we going to name you again?

Miles Jr. is too obvious.

Maurice is a stupid name but Amy kept pushing it. Said she wanted to name you after the man who brought us together.

But I never really cared for Maurice much. The name I mean, not the legend.

I suppose it doesn't matter now.

The sun finally disappears behind some mountains, rendering the whole visible world in shadow.

It doesn't matter now at all.

The expectation is always better than reality, I suppose.

You know, Amy and I had a deal on a house going. A nice ranch in a suburb of Mobotropolis with a big green lawn. There was even a big mulberry tree in the front. We liked that because we thought that you might like playing on it. It had a nice branch big enough for a tire swing or something, maybe. We were even planning on rigging up a little platform, a makeshift tree house, so you and your friends could have somewhere to play outside.

Amy and I were going to watch from the bay window with mugs of coffee as the leaves turned yellow and fell off, you still playing outside with your puffy jackets and ski caps until Amy got too nervous to let you stay out in the cold any longer, and I'd chuckle and sip at my coffee and look at my own reflection in the ripples. Laughing.

We couldn't get the deal closed before the birth. Though our apartment was cozy and clean enough we weren't too worried about raising a child in an apartment until we got out of escrow.

I don't think I would've been able to live in that house all alone.

There were good schools in that area. Not inner city schools, the ones Amy and I were afraid to let you get enrolled into. Nice suburban schools. You had all the makings of an athlete, what with your parents being ex-Freedom Fighters and all. Of course we wouldn't have forced you to play them if you didn't want to, but we had a feeling you would. You were gonna be a football player, of course. A young star. The kind of guy that everybody in the school would look up to.

Then finally you would've graduated and decided to go to college somewhere far away from us. On purpose, of course. There comes a time where every child must leave and learn how to interact in the world without their parents there to support them. I know this. I know this very well. We would've packed up the car while the mulberry treeturned yellow again, and started dropping its leaves as we pull out of the driveway and off to parts unknown.

There's a time in your life where everything good must leave it.

To make room for the new good things.

I know this.

So I set you down in the desert. Let the sand cradle you.

The air is starting to get colder. The sun is setting somewhere west of here. The wind picks up and starts rubbing sand into my fur and skin.

Babies need heat but you aren't a baby anymore. You're all grown up now and living on your own.

Lying still in your swaddling blankets with your mouth wide open.

As I walk away from you, I breathe in short shallow gasps.

Hn hn hn hn hn.

And I can feel the tears rolling down my face.

But it doesn't matter.

Nothing matters.

Goodbye.


End file.
